Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll has warned his side not to expect an easy match when they face the New Orleans Saints in the playoffs on Saturday.

The Seahawks have already faced the Saints once this season, cruising to a comfortable 34-7 victory at home just six weeks ago.

However, Carroll expects a much tougher test this time around and has urged his players to forget the last meeting between the two sides and focus on the upcoming challenge.

"We start all over again. It has nothing to do with what happened before. We don't care about that. Obviously, we learned and gained information for the game, as they did, but we start from scratch," Carroll told reporters.

"We will take a look at what's happened since we played them and what they've done. But it would be a mistake to try to call it based on what's happened in the past.

"There are no automatics here. [The players are] going to hear about it. It's human nature that you would like to think it's going to be the same. But we have to know better than that. We need to respect this for what it is, a great championship match-up, and they're going to come loaded up."

The Saints qualified for the divisional round with a 26-24 win over the Philadelphia Eagles last weekend, while the Seahawks had a bye in the first round by virtue of finishing as the number one seed in the NFC.